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AFTER THIRTEEN YEARS OF PLANNING, four years of construction and a total expenditure of some 360 million Euros the new Paris Tramway T7 opened for business on Saturday 16th November.

Designed to extend the public transport system between the departments of Val-de-Marne and Essonne, Tramway T7 runs from the Métro station Villejuif – Louis Aragon in the commune of Villejuif in the southern suburbs of Paris to Porte de l’Essonne in the commune of Athis-Mons close to Orly international airport.

The route of Tramway T7

In the middle of last week I went to Villejuif to watch and record the final testing of the trams before they entered service. This testing began in May this year but for the last month the trams and the crews have been operating a full service without passengers – a month-long dress rehearsal to ensure that the trams entered revenue service seamlessly.

The planning for this new tramway began as far back as the year 2000 when a process of consultation with the local communities began and then, in 2002, the Syndicat des transports d’Île-de-France (STIF) gave their approval in principle for the project. STIF is the organisation that controls the Paris public transport system and coordinates all the different transport companies operating in Île-de-France including RATP and SNCF.

A public inquiry was held at the end of 2003 and the beginning of 2004 to inform the local communities of the proposed plans and to hear any concerns or objections they had.

The proposed project was approved in December 2006 by RATP, STIF and the Conseil général du Val-de-Marne, the key local authority involved. In 2008, an amended proposal addressing some cost and technical issues was brought forward and this was approved in October of that year. This approval left the way clear for the preliminary construction work to begin in 2009.

In parallel with the construction of the tramway work was also begun on the redevelopment of the adjacent RD7, formerly Route National 7, the trunk road that runs from Paris to Italy.

The funding required for Tramway T7 was considerable:

€52 million to acquire the necessary land;

€44 million for the initial studies and project management;

€223 million for the construction of the tramway and the redevelopment of RD7 and,

€48 million for the new rolling stock.

This money was funded by:

The French Government (€10 million), represented by the Prefecture of the Ile-de-France;

Région Ile-de-France (€234 million) – in pursuance of its objective to develop transport links between suburbs;

The Conseil général du Val-de-Marne (€54 million) – for the redevelopment of the RD7 road;

The Conseil général de l’Essonne (€12 million);

Communauté d’agglomération “Les Portes de l’Essonne” (€2.4 million) – for the redevelopment of the south side of the airport platform;

RATP (€5 million) – they operate of the tramway.

STIF – who controlled whole project. The €48 million cost of the rolling stock is funded by STIF in a RATP / STIF leasing agreement.

Tramway T7 runs for 11.2 km from the Métro station Villejuif – Louis Aragon to Athis-Mons – Porte de l’Essonne. There are 19 trams operating the route which means that the average waiting time at any of the 18 stations is just 5 to 6 minutes on a weekday and a little longer at weekends and public holidays. The average travel time for the whole route is 31 minutes. The tramway can handle 30,000 passengers a day.

In yet another example of the joined-up thinking used by STIF and RATP, all but two of the 18 stations on this tramway have connections, or correspondances in French, with one or more bus routes.

Image courtesy of Alstom

The trams used on Tramway T7 are the Citadis 302 trams built by the French company Alstom. These trams are not only energy and noise efficient but their low-floor design gives easy access to wheelchairs, pushchairs and people with reduced mobility. Capable of a maximum speed of around 70 km/h the trams on tramway T7 run at an average speed somewhere around 20 km/h.

Inside the trams great attention has been given to both the signage and to the announcements. The signage in the roof tells passengers at each terminus precisely when the tram is due to depart. Throughout the journey the signage displays the name of the current stop and the connections that can be made there, the name of the next stop and the time it will take to get there as well as the time it will take to get to the next terminus.

Song Phanakem, the man behind the voices on the Paris mass transit system, has produced exceptionally good announcements for Tramway T7. He has used human voices of course and each tram stop announcement appears twice each time with a different intonation. The announcements are very clear and played at exactly the right volume – not too loud and not too soft. Only occasionally, in a very crowed tram with passenger’s voices raised more than usual, are the announcements a little hard to hear but the quality is such that even then they are not subsumed altogether. An interesting new feature is that at every tram stop there is an announcement to inform new passengers of the direction in which the tram is travelling. I can see this being very useful especially for international visitors travelling to or from Orly international airport who may be unfamiliar with this tram system.

Of course, I couldn’t possibly go to the inauguration of Tramway T7 and not ride on a tram especially since for the weekend of the 16th/17th November it was completely free! And I was very lucky because not only did I ride on a brand new tram, it was a very special new tram – the 1,500th Alstom Citadis tram in worldwide circulation.

I travelled all the way from Villejuif – Louis Aragon to Athis-Mons – Porte de l’Essonne – and back again. And, of course, I couldn’t make those journeys without recording them for my Paris Soundscapes Archive.

For those of you who have the time to listen, here are the sounds I captured on the outward journey.

While the creation and opening of Tramway T7 is impressive the story is not over. By 2018 it is planned that the tramway will be extended to Juvisy-sur-Orge and looking even further into the future, by 2020 it should connect to the new planned Métro line 15 at Villejuif- Louis Aragon. I think this is all good news especially since STIF and RATP seem to manage these new developments largely in harmony with the neighbouring local communities and in sympathy with environmental concerns.

Villejuif – The end of the line

And if you think that a tramway can’t have a life of its own, Tramway T7 has its own blog!

PARIS TRAMWAYS DATE BACK to the mid-nineteenth century with the first city tram route opening in 1855. At its peak in the 1920s, the tramway network incorporated some 122 lines and upwards of 1,000 km of track. By the 1930s though, the internal combustion engine reigned supreme and the number of motor cars and motor buses on the roads signalled the end of the tramways. The last of the tram lines in Paris, Porte de Saint-Cloud to Porte de Vincennes, closed in 1937, and the last line in the entire Paris agglomeration, running between Le Raincy and Montfermeil, ended service in 1938.

Carte postale ancienne éditée par Cormault, N°136 Paris

Paris and the surrounding region had to wait for almost sixty years before a new tramway network began to appear with a new generation of trams. First came Line T1, opened in 1992 followed by Line T2 in 1997, Lines T3 and T4 in 2006, Lines T5 and T7 in 2013 and Lines T6 and T8 in 2014. Some of these lines have already been extended and further extensions are planned. And two further new lines are planned: Line T9 is scheduled to open in 2020 and Line T10 in 2021.

Of the nine tramways currently operating in the Île-de-France region (Line T3a and T3b count as two separate lines) most operate within the suburbs around Paris, with only two lines, T3a and T3b, running entirely within the city limits, although line T2 does so for part of its route.

One of the suburban tramways is Line T8, the latest tramway to be opened, and I went to take a ride on it.

Image courtesy of RATP

After a trial running of four weeks without passengers, Line T8 opened in December 2014. The tramway runs 8·5 km north from Saint-Denis – Porte de Paris to Delaunay-Belleville, where it splits into two branches, terminating at Villetaneuse-Université and Epinay-Orgemont. There are a total of 17 stops and, in another example of RATP’s joined-up thinking, interchange is provided with metro Line 13, tram line T1 and RER Line C.

I caught a tram at Saint-Denis and travelled to Epinay-Orgemont in Epinay-sur-Seine.

The journey took 22 minutes and included 13 stops, the other 4 stops being on the branch line to Villetaneuse.

Villetaneuse is planned to be a future station on the new Tangental North line, a €1.5 billion suburban tram-train line that will interchange with existing SNCF Transilien trains, trams, metro, and Réseau Express Régional (RER) lines A, B, C, D and E. This line is scheduled for completion in 2023.

Epinay-sur-Seine is no stranger to trams. The tramway Enghien (Cygne d’Enghien) – Trinité (Église de la Trinité à Paris) was opened by the Compagnie des Tramways électriques du Nord-Parisiens on 26th September 1900. The line survived until March 1935 when it was replaced by a bus route.

I didn’t have to wait long for a tram for my return journey from Epinay to Saint-Denis. The trams run every six minutes, although along the stretch from the Delaunay-Belleville stop, where the two branch lines meet, to Saint-Denis they run every three minutes.

Tram Line 8 operates with a fleet of 20 low-floor Alstom Citadis trams assembled at Alstom’s La Rochelle factory. Each tram is 32 metres long and 2.4 metres wide, made up of five sections with capacity for 200 passengers. The trams include air-conditioning, CCTV, a passenger counting system and audiovisual passenger information. Some 55,000 passengers use Tram Line 8 every day, which amounts to 16 million passengers per year.

Constructing Tram Line 8 was a formidable task. The project, implemented by GCF, Generale Costruzioni Ferroviarie, in a consortium set-up with Esaf and Laforet, had to contend with a route running through a densely populated residential area characterised by a high volume of traffic. During construction, efforts were made to reduce pollution involving dust, gas and noise, as well as achieving maximum vibration reduction. Steps were also taken in advance over the entire length of the line to ensure the physical protection of trees by masking them to safeguard against the possible effects of shock caused by mechanical equipment.

Today, the tramway network around Paris amounts to some 105km of track with more still to come. The tramway network may be far short of its peak in the 1920s but riding today’s trams is a convenient and comfortable way to travel and I thoroughly recommend it.

IT’S BEEN A HECTIC few years for the tramway system in and around Paris. In 2012, the tram lines T1, T2 and T3 were extended, in 2013 two new tram lines were opened, T5 and T7, and now, in December 2014, two more new tram lines come on stream. On Saturday 13th December, tram line T6 was opened and on Tuesday 16th December it’s the turn of tram line T8.

I went to the opening of tram line T7 in November last year and last Saturday I braved the cold and the heavy rain and went to the opening of the new tram line T6.

Le ville en tram – the inauguration logo for tram line T6

At the moment, tram-line T6 runs for 13 km from the Châtillon-Montrouge Métro station (Métro Line 13) to the tram stop Robert Wagner in Vélizy-Villacoublay passing through the communes of Châtillon, Clamart, Fontenay-aux-Roses, Meudon and Vélizy-Villacoublay, although Montrouge, Malakoff and Le Plessis-Robinson will also benefit from their proximity to this service. When the tram line is completed in the Spring of 2016, two further tram stops and a subterranean section of line will extend the tram line a further 1.6 km to Viroflay.

The tramline T6 route

Tram line T6 has been designed to ensure easy transfers to Métro Line 13 (Châtillon-Montrouge), RER Line ‘C’ (Viroflay Rive Gauche), SNCF’s Transilien service (Viroflay Rive Gauche and Viroflay Rive Droite) as well as to several bus services at almost every tram stop.

The other transport connections (click on the image to enlarge)

Building a new tramway is a very lengthy process and the planning for tram line T6 began back in the year 2000. A proposal was put forward and accepted by the Syndicat des transports d’Île-de-France (STIF) in 2002. Preliminary studies and designs were carried out during 2002-2005 followed by a public announcement in 2006.

The cost of the project is around €385m excluding taxes and the cost of rolling stock and the project has been funded by the State (16%), Île-de-France (50%), Conseil général des Hauts-de-Seine (20%), Conseil général des Yvelines (13%) and RATP (1%).

For the rolling stock, a contract worth €171.6m was awarded for the supply of 28 Translohr STE 6 type trams.

Translohr STE 6 type trams at Châtillon-Montrouge on tram line T6. Note that there is only one rail per tram and the trams run on rubber tyres.

Each tram can accommodate 250 passengers, 60 of whom can be seated and the low floor facilitates easy access for passengers with restricted mobility. Other features include air conditioning, display screens and sound announcement systems.

Tram line T6 operates from 5h 30 to 00h 30 seven days a week. The journey time is 40 minutes and the trams operate every four minutes during peak hours and seven minutes during non-peak hours. It is expected that some 82,000 passengers will use the line each day.

Arriving at Châtillon-Montrouge Métro station last Saturday morning I emerged into an unpleasant winter chill and very heavy rain. I’d arrived about half an hour before the opening ceremony was due to begin so I had time to look round. I came upon two brand new trams parked ready to be moved into position at the appointed time.

I also discovered that the TV station, France 3, was covering the event ‘live’ so I was interested in taking a close look at their outside broadcast scanner …

But everyone else seemed more interested in the TV personalities on parade …

As I walked past the TV tent with its attendant big screen TV outside relaying the live broadcast to those standing in the rain I came upon the Franco-Brazilian drummers, Batucada Zalindé. While they were playing, the two trams I’d seen earlier were manoeuvring into position by the station platforms ready for the opening ceremony.

Inside the inaugural tram much later in the day when the crowds had subsided

After leaving the Châtillon-Montrouge terminus, tram line T6 makes a sharp left turn and then heads off up a hill. I was impressed by the speed of the tram as it climbed the hill. The Translohr STE 6 trams can reach a speed of 40 km/h but I think the average speed on tram line T6 is around 20 km/h.

Forty minutes after leaving Châtillon-Montrouge we arrived at the tram stop, Robert Wagner, the current terminus in Vélizy-Villacoublay.

Not all the passengers who got on at Châtillon-Montrouge travelled the full length of the line but those of us that did alighted at the Robert Wagner tram stop. There had been an opening ceremony at this end of the line too so some people went off to the marquees that had been set up to see what was on offer. I on the other hand, crossed the tram line and caught the next tram back to Châtillon-Montrouge.

I recorded the sounds inside the trams for the full length of both my outward and return journeys. These of course are historic sounds – the sounds inside the trams on their very first day of operation and so they have been consigned to my Paris Soundscapes Archive and, in due course, they will make their way to my Paris Soundscapes Collection in the sound archives of the British Library.

To give you flavour of what it sounds like inside a very full tram on tram line T6, here is part of the recording I made on the return journey, the five-stop section from Division Leclerc to Châtillon-Montrouge.

And when I arrived back at the Châtillon-Montrouge terminus the festivities were still under way, a band was playing – and it was still raining!

And …

Tram line T6 has its own Twitter account which provides passengers with traffic updates: @T6_RATP

When the new Tram Line T8 opens on Tuesday 16th December, the Paris tramway system, extending into the Île-de-France, will stretch for 105 km. From the opening of Tram Line 1 in 1992 to the opening of Tram Lines 6 and 8 in 2014, a huge amount of money has been invested in the tramway system. And there’s the prospect of more to come.

Tram Line T9 is the planned line between Paris Porte de Choisy and the city of Orly, expected in 2020, followed by Tram Line T10 from Antony to Clamart in the southwest suburbs of Paris, expected in 2021.

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About

This blog is dedicated to my recordings of the street sounds of Paris … and occasionally, to some other things too. I specialise in street recordings mostly in binaural stereo. I take my inspiration from the great twentieth-century street photographers who walked the streets seeking that elusive 'decisive moment'. For most of our history we have used artefacts, architecture, pictures and words to create a vision of our past. It’s only in the last thirty seconds or so on our historical clock that we have been able to capture and record sound. Almost all our sonic heritage has passed by unrecorded. That is why I, and many others, are dedicated to recording and archiving the sounds around us so that future generations will have the sounds of our time to explore, to study and to enjoy.